django - render to response from function - not working

Question

I have a view like this :

  def myview(request):
      print "A"

      some_function()

      return HttpResponse("This should not appear")

  def some_function():
      return render_to_response("templ.html", {}, context_instance=RequestContext(request))

Here, the function renders template if i call the function like this :

    return some_function()

But it always expect the function to return, but i want the function to return only at certain times. I can use some logic in the view whether to return or not, but i am asking it is possible to do everything in the view so i can simply call the function ?

Answer 1

You can render a response from a function, but what you need is return some_function() not some_function() alone, in your case some_function() does execute, but the return value is not passed on as the return value of your view myview()

So the execution flow continues and reaches return HttpResponse("This should not appear") , so that is the response you will get in your view.

If you had some_function() alone (and without return ), then your view would return with no response ( myview() being a function that returns nothing), and Django would complain.

You can use logic to control the flow ofcourse, provided you use return on the called functions, eg :

def my_view(request):

    if request['x'] == 'a':
        return function_a()
    elif request['x'] == 'b':
        return function_b()

    return some_other_response()

Just make function_x() return a valid response.